Tag Archive for 'dashi'

Choi sum goma-ae (chinese greens with sesame sauce)

Published
by
marc
on May 6, 2008
in Japanese, Vegan, Vegetable and Vegetarian
. 9 Comments

After the meat bomb the past 2 nights, I was feeling a need for some cleansing today and decided to do a nice light Japanese veggie (well almost) dinner. By the time I got home from work, I was starving, so I cut up some lebanese cucumbers into bite size sticks and wrapped them in ramp kimchi. I figured it’s not really worthy of its own post, but they were tasty little things.

For dinner, I steamed up some choi sum (chinese greens) and made one of my favourite accompaniments for any steamed greens: goma-ae (pronounced go-ma-ah-ay). It’s like a dressing without the oil or vinegar and has a deep earthy flavor from the ground sesame seeds and dashi. I like to brighten it up a little with just a spash of yuzu juice. Not enough to make it tangy, but enough to give it that unmistakably sunny flavor of yuzu. If you can’t find yuzu, you can use a little lemon or lime zest instead.

I also made a nasu dengaku (grilled eggplant with sweet miso paste), but you’ll have to stay tuned for my next post for that.

Totally unrelated, but I got to work this morning, turned on my laptop and saw the news headline “21,000 Killed in Myanmar”, a storm that happened somewhere on the other side of the world (that last I heard had tragically taken 200 lives), suddenly got orders of magnitude more real. If you feel the need to help out in some way, I found a few organizations collecting money for relief efforts.

Global Giving is a cool organization that uses the power of the web to collect small donations from lots of people then figures out the most effective way to get it in the hands of the people doing the relief work (cutting out some of the administrative fat of giving to a bigger organizations where a chunk of your donation doesn’t actually go to the relief efforts). They also give you updates on what your money is doing which I thought is pretty cool.

If you’re weary about giving to a small unknown organization, AmeriCares International has been around for 25 years and actually has volunteers on the ground in Myanmar.

1/2 bunch of choi sum

2 Tbs toasted sesame seeds ground with a mortar and pestle
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbs dashi
splash of yuzu juice

Steam or boil the choi sum until bright green (about 1-2 minutes). Rinse under cold water and squeeze out any excess water.

While you could cheat and use instant dashi since you only need a little, I was making something else so I made my dashi with niboshi (dried baby sardines) and shitake mushrooms. If you want to make a veggie dashi, use extra shitake with some onions.

For the sauce, just mix the last 5 ingredients together and pour over the steamed veggies.

Similar posts

Shiso wrapped bass dumplings in dashi

Published
by
marc
on March 29, 2008
in Japanese, Seafood and Soups & Stews
. 3 Comments

Shiso wrapped bass dumplings in dashi

While dumplings can be a little labor intensive, they don’t have to be hard. Using whole pieces of marinated bass make this very simple to prepare and the results are definitely worth the effort. Since the fish is well marinated I go light on the salt in the broth and it makes for a light refreshing 1 bowl meal.

Shiso has a fresh flavor that compliments the bass nicely covering any fishiness (which it shouldn’t have if it’s fresh). You should be able to find it at any Japanese grocery, or if you don’t have one near by, try asking your local sushi restaurant as it’s commonly used as a garnish. If you still have no luck, you could try using something else such as mint, a little shredded ginger or a little lemon zest.

I served this with a bowl of quinoa (pronounced keen-wah), which is a healthy, gluten free alternative to rice. It’s somewhere between brown rice and cous cous and has a slightly poppy crunch similar to tobiko.

for dumplings
stripped bass or other white meat fish cut into 20 small pieces (1/4″ x 3/4″ x 1/2″)
Japanese marinade
10 green shiso leaves cut in half lengthwise
gyoza or wonton wrappers

for soup
3 cups dashi
1 Tbs mirin
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt
2 shitake mushrooms
1 scallion sliced thin

Marinate the bass in the Japanese marinade for 15 minutes.

Combine the dashi, mirin, soy sauce, salt and mushrooms in a small saucepan and keep at a low simmer until ready to serve.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

Wrapping the dumplingsShiso wrapped bass dumplings in dashiFill a small bowl with water. Wrap each piece of bass in a piece of shiso and then place it in the middle of a gyoza wrapper. Dip your fingers in the bowl of water and get the outer edge of half the wrapper wet. Fold the wrapper in half over the bass and seal the edges well while trying to make sure you don’t trap too much air. Repeat with the rest of the bass.

Place the dumplings in the boiling water and cook for about 5 minutes.

When the dumplings are done, add the scallions to the soup, plate the dumplings then pour the broth over the dumplings. Garnish with a little lemon zest.

Similar posts

Tofu with crab sauce (Kani ankake doufu)

Published
by
marc
on March 20, 2008
in Japanese, Seafood, Side and Tofu
. 0 Comments

Tofu with crab sauce (Kani ankake doufu)

Of all places, the inspiration for this dish came 30,000 feet above the Midwest. What does tofu and crab have to do with flying over the Midwest?

I was flying back to New York from San Francisco on a Virgin America flight which has an awesome in-flight entertainment system with video-on-demand in the seat back screens. Flipping through the many options, I noticed they had some Japanese programing. One of the shows (something between a celebrity quiz show and a Discovery channel topical documentary), was featuring crab going into great scientific detail about the best ways to prepare, frozen, fresh, and canned crab.

While the program didn’t say how to actually make any of the dishes, this one seemed simple enough to reproduce at home. Simmered silken tofu takes on the texture of a luscious egg custard, and the lightly thickened sauce adds briny flavor without overpowering the delicate tofu.

Canned crab meatI usually get little cans of crab meat at the Japanese grocery store, but you might be able to find something similar at regular grocery stores. Otherwise I’m sure fresh crab meat would work just as well.

water to simmer tofu
7 oz tofu cut into 2 pieces

1/2 C dashi (or some kind of stock)
1 tsp corn starch
1/4 C canned crab with juice, crumbled
Salt to taste

Shredded ginger for garnish

Put enough water in a large put to submerge the tofu. Bring to light simmer over low heat.

In a small saucepan, combine the dashi, corn starch, and canned crab and bring to boil. Add salt to make it about as salty as a cup of chicken soup, or to taste.

Use a spatula to carefully (it’s delicate and slippery) lift out the tofu from the water. Cover with the sauce and garnish with ginger.

Similar posts

Red miso soup

Published
by
marc
on March 15, 2008
in Japanese and Soups & Stews
. 1 Comment

Red miso soup with mushrooms and fried tofu

Miso soup is a staple of the Japanese table eaten with meals from breakfast to dinner. Depending on the region of Japan you’re in, you might find yourself starring down at a steaming bowl of white miso soup with okra and taro, or a heady bowl of dark miso soup with deep fried tofu, bamboo and wild mushrooms. Growing up in California, I always looked forward to Saturday morning breakfasts because it meant my mom was making Japanese food for the two of us and western food for my sister and step-father.

As I mentioned in my last post, the dashi (stock) that you use to make miso soup is what makes or breaks the soup. There’s a recipe below for the dashi, or you can opt to use one of the 2 kinds of instant dashi.

I vary the ingredients based on what I have in my fridge, but you can put just about any veggie into this soup from carrots, to potatoes, to cabbage to bean sprouts.

For Dashi
2 C water
10 niboshi with heads removed
1 3″ long piece of dried konbu

For Soup
1 Tbs + 1 Tsp red miso paste
1 Tsp Mirin
Handful of Nameko mushrooms (or Enoki)
2″ x 2″ piece of Abura Age (deep fried tofu) cut into small squares
1 scallion sliced thin

mitsuba (optional garnish)

For the dashi, simmer the ingredients over low heat for 10-15 minutes. If you have a teaball, or disposable tea bags, I like putting the niboshi in one so they’re easier to retrieve when the stock is done. Make sure it does not boil as this could make the soup cloudy or bitter. Taste it… it should be deep, slightly smoky and full of umami. Now just fetch all the floaties and your done with the dashi (you might need to run it through a strainer).

To make the soup, put the miso and mirin in a bowl and add some dashi to help disolve the miso. Put this mixture into the pot and bring it to a light simmer. Make sure it does not boil as this will make the miso separate.

Add the Aburaage (pronounced Abura-a-ge the middle “a” sounds like the “a” in “amish” and the “ge” sounds like the “ga” in “Gary”) and mushrooms and cook for a few minutes. Sprinkle the scallions in at the very end just before you serve the soup.

Once it’s in the bowls you can add some Mitsuba. It’s a bit hard to find (you’ll have to go to a japanese grocery store), and there isn’t really a suitable replacement, but it adds a wonderful cedar aroma to the soup that carries you away to a misty evergreen forest.

Similar posts

Dashi (Japanese stock)

Published
by
marc
on March 15, 2008
in Ingredients and Japanese
. 15 Comments

Ingredients for dashiclockwise from top: dried shiitake mushrooms, konbu (dried kelp), niboshi (dried baby sardines), katsuo (dried bonito flakes).

Dashi (along with soy sauce, miso, and mirin) is one of the 4 cornerstones of Japanese cooking. Given the simple, understated nature of many Japanese dishes, good dashi is what sets apart bland salty water from a deeply nuanced miso soup.

“Instant” dashiMost people (both here an in Japan) tend to reach for the instant packets of powdered dashi out of convenience, but a quick look at the list of ingredients will reveal that most of these have loads of salt and MSG. While I’ll admit I do keep some of this stuff around to use in a pinch, I try to avoid it whenever possible.

Another alternative is to use dashi “teabags” that you can find in most japanese grocery stores. These are basically satchels that have been filled with ground up dried fish, kelp and mushrooms that you just drop in a pot of water and steep. These are actually pretty handy when you’re pressed for time and provide a nice well rounded broth, but like packaged salads, there no replacement for sourcing the ingredients yourself.

Unlike making a good chicken stock, dashi can be made with a few ingredients in just a few minutes. Typically dashi is made with some combination of dashi konbu, katsuobushi, niboshi, and sometimes shiitake. The proportions, ingredients and cooking time determine what kind of dashi you’ll end up with. Try varying combinations to see what suits the dish you’re preparing as well as your tastes.

Typically I find that konbu and katsubushi based dashi work better with lighter fare like white miso soups and light soy sauce based stews, while dashi made with niboshi is better suited for dark miso soups, dark soy sauce stews and as a soup stock for Udon noodles.

Similar posts